


Magic Like What's In The Movies

by dear_monday



Series: Magic Like What's In The Movies [1]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Gen, Paranormal Investigators, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:12:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: Dennis was the one who'd brought them all together. He'd had grand visions of uniting the brightest supernatural talents on the east coast to form the slickest, most kick-ass crew of paranormal investigators around. Instead, he had his psychic sister, a werewolf who wouldn't change, and a witch whose specialty was some weird brand of urban swamp magic.





	Magic Like What's In The Movies

**Author's Note:**

> So [beachdeath](http://beachdeath.tumblr.com) made a post about the gang as paranormal investigators, and... this happened. I had the best time writing it. Seriously, THE BEST TIME. There are a few things I really liked that didn't quite make it into this story, so I might put together a sequel or two. Big thanks to [outrunningthezombies](http://outrunningthezombies.tumblr.com) for moral support and headcanons ♥ enjoy!
> 
> Slight Mac/Dennis overtones, contains non-graphic violence and canon-typical Awful People™. Title from [The Magic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBmpvzkFwBI) by Lola Blanc.

"The hoop snakes in the basement are back," said Dee. "I think they're nesting."  
  
Dennis groaned. "Shit. Charlie, you wanna go take a look at that while we're waiting on Frank?"  
  
"I'm on it." Charlie picked up the stained baseball bat from behind the bar and started down the stairs.  
  
"Hold on," said Dennis. "Aren't you gonna... do something?"  
  
"I am doing something." Charlie held up the bat. "That's what this is for."  
  
"Something with _magic._ Like a pestilence or something. Or the Creeping Death."  
  
"Naw." Charlie scratched idly at his elbow. "Too messy. And the Creeping Death is a bitch to keep in one room, that's gonna take all day. I'm just gonna bash 'em, put 'em in a sack and throw 'em in the river." He mooched off to the basement, humming to himself and swinging the bat.  
  
"Jesus Christ," muttered Dennis, opening a beer. "The vermin situation in this place is out of control."  
  
"It's this shithole," said Dee. "We don't know _what's_ down there."  
  
They'd bought the bar because that piece of shit realtor had assured them it was a site of immense occult significance and paranormal activity - and, to be fair, it was. The back office technically existed outside of time and space, which was cool in theory but in practice just gave it an odd smell. Frank swore on his mother's grave that the jukebox was cursed, and the basement was always full of hoop snakes and Other Things, which looked like rats, but they moved like they had too many bones. There was plenty of paranormal activity. That was the problem.  
  
Back in the day, they'd all agreed that a haunted bar would make a nicely atmospheric base for their little operation. Now, older and wiser, Dennis often caught himself thinking wistfully about a nice clean office, with lots of glass and brushed steel and a break room that didn't have supernatural vermin multiplying in it.  
  
As if on cue, the door banged open and Frank came shambling in. "Heyo!"  
  
"Frank, you're late."  
  
"Yeah, yeah," said Frank. "I was cookin' the books, what's your excuse?"  
  
Frank was a troll, and if trolls knew about one thing, it was money. In theory, Frank could glamor himself to look however he wanted, but for reasons known only to Frank himself, he chose to look almost exactly the same as a man as he did as a troll. Dennis resented having to keep him around - there was just something about Frank's very being that somehow _lowered the tone_ \- but he had to admit that when it came to creative accounting, Frank was second to none. Frank clambered up onto a barstool and slapped his hand down imperiously on the sticky, pockmarked wood. "Beer me."  
  
Dennis handed Frank a beer and watched as he took the cap off with his teeth. After a minute or two, the loud banging noises and intermittent curses filtering up through the floor stopped and Charlie reappeared with the bloody bat in one hand and a sack over his shoulder.  
  
"Hey, Charlie," said Frank. "Whaddaya got there?"  
  
Charlie held up the bag. "Hoop snakes."  
  
Frank made an interested noise. "What you gonna do with 'em?"  
  
"Throw 'em in the river, probably."  
  
"Aw, hey, don't do that. Bring 'em over here."  
  
"You want 'em, buddy?"  
  
"Yeah. Hoop snakes are good eating."  
  
Charlie and Frank coexisted in a sort of unholy symbiosis that Dennis didn't fully understand and didn't wish to. If he hadn't known better, he would've thought Charlie was part troll himself.  
  
"Alright," said Dennis, with a meaningful look at Frank. "Now we're all here--"  
  
"Hold up, hold up," said Frank, looking around. "Where's the other one?"

"Mac's puking in the men's bathroom. Change-sick, my ass. He's just hungover."  
  
"Oh, please," said Dee. "We're all hungover. He's the only one being a pussy about it."  
  
"Exactly," said Dennis. "He'll have to catch up, I want to get started. I expect you're all wondering--"  
  
"We've got a case," said Dee.  
  
Dennis hated her. "Dee, you absolute bitch."  
  
"What? You were taking forever to get to the point, I just--ow!"  
  
"Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!"  
  
"I will stop hitting myself when you stop _moving my hands_ , dickbreath! _Ow_ , Jesus Christ!"  
  
Dennis had always thought that being one of a pair of psychic twins would be pretty sweet - if only the other half wasn't Dee.  
  
"I heard that, Dennis, you asshole!" she yelled.  
  
"You were supposed to!" One of his own hands shot up and clocked him hard across the jaw, and he yelped. "Not the face, not the face! Goddamn psycho bitch, what is wrong with you? Truce, okay?"  
  
"Truce,"  she said, grudgingly.  
  
"Okay. Okay." Dennis smoothed down his hair and glared at Dee. "I got a call this morning. We've got a case, but the client wants to meet us first to make sure we're legit. This is it, alright? This is the opportunity we've been waiting for. If we pull this off, the word's gonna spread and we can go full time again."  
  
When business had begun to drop off, they'd all had to pick up sidelines to make ends meet. Dennis and Dee occasionally ran gambling scams, which brought in good money but had resulted in them being banned from several casinos in the area. Frank and Charlie made moonshine in the bathtub of their apartment (127 proof, overtones of gasoline, side effects included hallucination and astral projection). Mac, inexplicably, was a big hit with middle-aged white ladies, and could pass himself off as a convincing medium as long as Charlie snuck in with him and made ghostly noises. Charlie also gave bizarre, frightening tarot readings, which were pretty accurate considering that his "deck" was composed of baseball cards, Pokémon trading cards and regular playing cards with the tarot names written on them in Sharpie, all badly misspelled.  
  
By that point, Dennis had to admit, they were basically grifters with a passing interest in the paranormal. "So - look," he said. "I'm begging here, okay? I'm down on my goddamn knees. Can I have five minutes of professionalism from everyone? Please? Five minutes. That's all I want."

 

*

 

"I _do_ take it seriously, man," insisted Charlie. They were sitting in the foyer of the client's office the following morning, waiting to be called in and retreading old arguments to pass the time.  
  
"Charlie," said Dennis, "Last week I watched you dump an entire can of Chef Boyardee ravioli onto the asphalt in a gas station parking lot for divination."  
  
"Yeah?" Charlie's wide-eyed, earnest expression didn't falter. "And it worked, didn't it?"  
  
Dennis had given up on trying to shame Charlie into more witch-like behaviour. No matter what Dennis said or did, Charlie still used the yuck puddle in the men's bathroom for scrying. One time, he'd chugged seven bottles of Mountain Dew and fought an Elder God in the sewers under the bar armed with nothing but a broken bottle. In a desperate attempt to class up their little outfit, Dennis had even bought Charlie an obsidian seeing stone, polished to a mirror shine and carved with arcane runes. Charlie had promptly lost it and gone right back to using the rock with a hole in it that he'd found down by the Schuylkill.  
  
"Well, sure, it worked," Dennis said. "But you didn't have to eat it afterwards."  
  
"That's good food!" Charlie protested, throwing his hands up. "It was perfectly good, edible--"  
  
"It was on the ground, Charlie! Where the dirt is!"  
  
"Oh, whatever, Jesus, like a bit of dirt ever hurt anyone."  
  
"Yeah," said Frank. "Now, me? I got a strong stomach. But you people, you got your little, uh... immune systems? Is that what you call 'em? A bit of dirt does you good. Keeps you strong."  
  
"That's not--that's not how _anything_ works, Frank! What is that you're eating anyway?"  
  
"Hoop snake." Frank wiped his greasy fingers on the front of his shirt. "You want a piece?"  
  
"No! Jesus Christ, I do not want to eat the hoop snakes we seem to be... _breeding_ in the basement of the bar."  
  
Frank grunted. "Suit yourself. You want some, Charlie?"  
  
"Yeah, I'll take a piece, give that here."  
  
"Oh my god." Dennis rubbed his temples and forced himself to breathe. "Oh my god, I am going to kill every last one of you with my bare hands. Look, this is a nice place, alright? So none of your usual drinking, swearing or starting fights. Class it up, you assholes. Also, what are you all wearing? I'm telling you this for your own good, but you look like shit."  
  
Mac raised his hand. "Uh, I have to cut the sleeves off my shirts. Otherwise they tear. You know, because I'm so ripped."  
  
"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. And what the shit is this, Dee? You look like some kind of depressed crow."  
  
"It's a pantsuit!"  
  
"It's hideous. And--Jesus, Charlie, is that snake blood on your shirt?"  
  
Charlie squinted down at the rust-brown stain on his chest. "Yeah, probably."  
  
"So it's the same shirt you were wearing yesterday?"  
  
"Well, yeah."  
  
"You didn't even change your shirt to come here?"  
  
Charlie looked genuinely confused. "Why would I do that? It wasn't dirty."  
  
"It has blood on it!"  
  
"Only a little bit."  
  
Dennis pinched the bridge of his nose and waited for the red mist to dissipate again.  
  
"Sirs, Madam?"  
  
As one, they looked up to see a dour-looking middle-aged woman standing in front of them. Her hair was piled up in a way that hadn't been fashionable for thirty years, and her face was twisted into a strained-looking smile. "Yeah?" said Mac.  
  
"I'm Mr. Carmichael's assistant," she said, in a forty-a-day kind of voice with a faint southern accent. "He'll see you now. Follow me, please."  
  
They all stood up, and Frank stuffed the bag of hoop snake back into his pocket. Charlie wiped his hands on his jeans. Dennis sighed. He shot Carmichael's assistant a smile, but her expression didn't change. Fine, he thought. Miserable old bitch. He saw one corner of Dee's mouth twitch. The assistant led them through to an office with five chairs set out in front of a desk and a man - Carmichael - sat behind it. He was a thickset man in a cheap suit with buzz-cut salt and pepper hair.  
  
"Mr. Carmichael," said Dennis, leaning over the desk to shake his hand. "Dennis Reynolds, we spoke on the phone. These are my, ah, colleagues. Charlie Kelly, my sister Deandra, our, uh…"  
  
"Manager," said Frank, with a big, wide smile.  
  
"Our manager, Frank, and... Mac."  
  
"Pleasure." Carmichael gestured the chairs. "Sit down, sit down. Thanks for coming in at such short notice. I'm sure you're very busy. I hear you're the best."  
  
Charlie looked like he was about to disagree. Dennis made Dee kick him in the shins to shut him up.  
  
"That's right," said Dennis, smoothly, and Mac nodded. "What can we do for you?"  
  
"We run a small haunted house," said Carmichael.  
  
"Oh, shit, really?" said Charlie, sitting forward in his chair. "One of those designated non-corporeal entity assembly point things?"  
  
"A tourist attraction," said Carmichael. "The ghosts aren't real, Mr. Kelly."  
  
"Oh. Yeah, that's, uh. Makes sense."  
  
Mac patted Charlie consolingly on the shoulder.  
  
"So if the ghosts aren't real," said Dee, slowly, "What's the problem?"  
  
Carmichael smiled. He looked like he was really having to work at it. "You've put your finger on it, Ms. Reynolds. We've had one or two... incidents, lately. Things we can't explain."  
  
"Define _incidents_ ," said Mac, pressing his fingertips together in a way that was probably supposed to make him look cool and thoughtful. It didn't.  
  
"One disappearance," said Carmichael. "A visitor. Our security footage shows her going in, but not going out again. We were able to track her until she walked through a camera blind spot, then we lost her. We've searched the whole house, but... nothing. And, uh, one death. An employee. Nasty business. It's all in the file. We called the police in, but we're damned if we can see how someone could have done it. Christine, could you get me those files? Thanks."  
  
Carmichael's assistant extracted two manila folders from a teetering stack on the edge of the desk and handed them to him. He passed them across the desk to Dennis. Dennis handed one file down the line to Frank and flipped the other one open. Stapled to the front page was a grainy photograph.  
  
"Oh," said Dennis, leaning away from it and turning it on its side to see if that made it any easier to look at. It didn't. "Oh, wow. That's, uh, very... graphic."  
  
"Oh, _sick_ ," said Mac, looking over Dennis' shoulder. "Dude, is that his--?"  
  
"Yeah," said Dee. She sounded slightly choked.  
  
"Very thorough, though," said Frank. He pulled out the bag of hoop snake again and popped one into his mouth. "They did a thorough job, you gotta give 'em that."  
  
Charlie helped himself to another piece of snake and nodded thoughtfully, peering over at the photo.  
  
"I'll leave those files with you," said Carmichael. "What we'd like - if you'll agree to take our case, that is - is for you to investigate and, uh, smoke out whatever is causing the trouble. It's bad for business. You're fully insured, I take it?"  
  
Dennis cranked up the wattage of his smile. "Of course," he said. They weren't, but Carmichael wasn't to know that. Insurance premiums for freelance groups of paranormal investigators were sky high, and they'd all agreed it was an unnecessary expense. If Carmichael pressed, they had some pretty convincing paperwork that Frank had cooked up, which was basically the same thing.  
  
"Wonderful. We're willing to pay the standard rate for one night of complete surveillance, then we'll work out the details once you've got some idea what we're dealing with. How does that sound?"  
  
Mac opened his mouth, probably to say that it sounded like more money than any of them had seen in over a year.  
  
"That sounds great," said Dennis, quickly. God, it was a miracle that they'd managed to get this far without one of those idiots blowing it. He smiled. "We'll take your case."

 

*

 

"It sounds like a Wendigo," said Mac.  
  
"You're embarrassing yourself," said Dennis, pulling up in front of the bar. "That's ridiculous, Mac, there aren't fucking Wendigo anymore. What is this, 1800? Get out, we've got shit to do."  
  
They all piled out of the car, arguing in a way that was more habit than actual disagreement.  
  
"Okay," said Mac, clapping his hands. "Let's get tooled up!"  
  
"Don't say tooled up," said Dennis, automatically. He unlocked the front door and led the way to the keg room. "Who's got the key?"  
  
"Ah," Charlie said, in what Dennis thought of as his _about that_ voice. "Yeah, I, uh. I threw it away."  
  
"Jesus Christ, Charlie, why on earth would you do that?" Dennis grabbed the door handle and rattled it ineffectually.  
  
"I cursed the door instead," said Charlie, and Dennis dropped the handle like it was hot.  
  
"Oh, for--son of a bitch, Charlie, _why?_ "  
  
"I dunno." Charlie shrugged. "I was drunk, it was a Tuesday, it seemed like a good idea at the time. You know how it is."  
  
"Okay," said Dee. "Who's got a cursebreaker? Frank?"  
  
Frank shook his head. "I got nothin'."  
  
Dee groaned. "Of course you don't. Mac? Dennis?"  
  
"No," admitted Dennis. "Charlie?"  
  
"No, look, it's not a big deal," said Charlie. "I can get us in. I just gotta, uh. Hm. It'd be easier with lizard powder but I think I used it all up. Okay. Let me, uh..." he closed his eyes and went still and silent, barely breathing.  
  
"What's he doing?" Dennis whispered.  
  
"He's doing that thing," said Mac, in a low voice. "You know, that thing where he has to shut his eyes and imagine everything around him is orange?"  
  
"He's-- _what?_ That's not a thing! How the hell is that supposed to work?"  
  
"I don't know, man, but it does. It's, like, some weird glitch he discovered."  
  
"Oh yeah?" Dennis watched Charlie closely, looking for signs that he was unpicking a dangerous curse with nothing but blind optimism, but his face was calm and blank. Charlie inhabited a strange and frightening universe that Dennis had no desire to visit. Frank, who was notionally one of the fair folk, understood it better than the others.  
  
"Yeah," said Mac. "He's supposed to do it for an hour, though, I don't know if--"  
  
"An _hour?_ Oh, no. Absolutely not, I'm not standing around here for an hour. Charlie? Charlie, man, enough of this. Open the goddamn door."  
  
Charlie's eyes fluttered open again and he blinked several times, like his eyes hadn't re-adjusted yet. "Okay," he said. "I think it's probably alright now. I know you're meant to do it for longer, but it's probably fine, right?"  
  
"Sure, buddy," said Dennis. "After you."  
  
Charlie pushed down the handle, opened the door and stepped into the keg room. When he didn't start levitating or crumble to ashes, Dennis and the others followed him in.  
  
The keg room always seemed bigger on the inside than the floor plan of the bar really allowed for, but it was still a hotly disputed issue whether this was a result of the magical junk that had accumulated in there or just a quirk of architecture. It was a maze of shelving units, all stacked with carefully labelled bottles and jars and boxes. The labels were mostly legible and properly spelled, mainly because there had been an incident that had culminated in Dennis getting his eyebrows burnt off. Once he'd calmed down, he'd put his foot down and insisted that Mac help Charlie with the labels from then on.  
  
In the unit closest to the door, there were two large mason jars marked _CAT BONES (LUCKY)_ and _CAT BONES (MISC., FOR DEVIL SUMMONING)_. There were plastic baggies marked _SNAKE POWDER_ and _LIZARD POWDER_ \- the snake powder, stirred into coffee, would fill the drinker with hundreds of little snakes, but the lizard powder, drunk with whiskey, would break a curse. There was an old gasoline can full of holy water. A shoebox full of grave dirt. A weird little stone sculpture that was difficult to look at for more than a minute at a time. A crate of beer bottles, each containing a penny and two cockroaches and sealed with squares of roughly-cut squares of cheesecloth, marked _CURSE BOTTLES_. A tub of something marked _DETH POWDER_ , which Charlie had concocted by accident (it had no magical properties, but it made a delicious and very spicy chicken marinade). A cardboard box full of cursed objects. A bundle of railroad spikes and an ugly old porcelain vase containing several sharpened fence posts. A few pairs of night vision goggles, all held together with spit and prayer. Jars of blood, a barrel of kerosene, a few horseshoes. A hatchet. A box of antique cherry bombs. An industrial-sized bag of salt. Boxes and boxes of cheap white candles. Broken sticks of chalk. Duct tape. A fifteen inch bowie knife. A rosary hanging from a nail hammered into the wall.  
  
They moved around each other with the ease of familiarity, dodging elbows and trying not to step on each other's feet and ducking under the bundles of pigeon feathers and dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. Dee reached for the bowie knife, the shotgun and an ammunition bandolier. Mac took the rosary. Dennis picked up the least busted pair of night vision goggles. All three of them shuffled back to the doorway to wait for Charlie, who seemed to be grabbing things off the shelves more or less at random.  
  
Once he had as much as he could carry, they trooped back out into the bar and began their pre-game rituals. Frank, who claimed he was too old for field work, sat down in a booth with a bottle of moonshine ('04 Special Reserve, notes of pepper and gunpowder, known to cause blindness and temporary insanity) and a copy of the _New Magical Enquirer_. Dee took a seat at the bar and began dismantling the shotgun, barely looking down at her hands as she worked and pausing occasionally to drink from the open beer in front of her.  
  
"Whaddaya got there, Charlie?" she said.  
  
"Oh, I got some stuff cookin'," said Charlie, vaguely. He was futzing with something he was making out of pigeon feathers and several little pots of acrid-smelling powder. "Real low, dirty shit."  
  
"Not the bathtub nitroglycerin again," said Dee, looking at him shrewdly.  
  
A hunted look came over Charlie's face. "Um."  
  
"Oh, goddammit, not again," said Dennis, putting the night vision goggles down on the bar. "Motion to eighty-six whatever Charlie is doing right now. All in favor, say aye. Aye."  
  
"Aye," said Dee, immediately.  
  
"Aye," said Mac, looking up from his rosary.  
  
"Three to one," said Dennis. "Sorry, buddy."  
  
Years ago, Dennis had tried to find out who had taught Charlie the trade and eventually arrived at the horrifying realization that he was entirely self-taught. As a rule, people didn't teach themselves to do magic, mainly because it was a good way to wind up in pieces - often scattered throughout the multiverse. But it did explain a lot. Charlie's particular brand of magic was a mongrel discipline of his own devising, a weird sort of urban swamp magic with other people's rituals and practices MacGyvered in all over the place. What really irritated Dennis was that Charlie clearly had an abundance of natural, god-given talent and absolutely no style.  
  
"Hey, look," said Dee, pointing down at the gap in the floorboards. "Spiders. What is it, one for sorrow, two for joy?"  
  
"Nah, that's magpies," said Charlie. "It's not about the number, you've got your portents all mixed up. Spiders in the morning, grief. Spiders at noon, joy. Spiders at night, hope."  
  
"Yeah, and spiders all day every day means someone needs to vacuum up the eggs again," said Dennis, pointedly.  
  
"These things have ten legs," said Mac, wandering over with the rosary still wrapped around his fingers and crouching down to get a better look. "I think you're gonna need more than a vacuum cleaner this time, dude."  
  
"I'll go get it," said Charlie. He hopped down off his barstool and vanished into the keg room, reappearing a minute later with an odd machine under his arm.  
  
Mac made an impressed noise. "You're busting out the Chicane?"  
  
A Shevchenko Chicane was a useful device that could punch holes through two dimensional planes at once. They retailed at several thousand dollars each for the entry-level models, but Charlie had built a functioning one out of raccoon fur, duct tape, a monkey wrench, a bike chain and some pigeon blood one weekend when things were quiet.  
  
"Oh, yeah. You see how they keep, like, flickering in and out? And--come over here, can you smell that? Burnt sugar. The little bastards are working in more than one dimension."  
  
"Sweet. Hey, can I try it?"  
  
"Yeah, man." Charlie handed the Chicane to Mac. "Okay. Now, look, she's a little temperamental, okay? You gotta treat her right. You're gonna wanna keep your finger on that trigger and, uh, brace yourself, she's got a hell of a kick."  
  
Dennis winced at the almighty crack, then again at Mac's whoop of excitement and Charlie's manic laugh. It was like working in a goddamn kindergarten, some days.  
  
"Hey, Mac," he said. "What do you think? Are we gonna see you change this time?"  
  
Mac was - or at least claimed to be - some sort of were-creature, but somehow, in all their years together, he'd always managed to avoid changing in front of them. He insisted that he was a big, badass wolf, and Charlie believed him, but his reluctance had led Dennis and Dee to conclude that he turned into some pussy-ass Chihuahua or something. Once upon a time, Dennis had thought it'd be cool to have a werewolf in the group, a stone-cold badass who'd tear apart anyone who threatened them. What they had instead was Mac, who wouldn't change and went to church on Sundays and thought praying a rosary and doing push-ups on the floor of the bar was adequate preparation for any job.  
  
"Sure you will," said Mac. "If a situation arises where, you know, we need extra security."  
  
"Oh, yeah?" said Dee, who had started putting the shotgun back together. "What qualifies as a situation, huh? That time when Dennis knocked me out with a two by four?"  
  
"I thought you were possessed!"  
  
"Or the time when Charlie hexed me?"  
  
"Yeah," said Charlie. "I got nothing, that one's on me."  
  
"Jesus Christ," said Dennis. "Mac, you wanna give me a hand with the surveillance kit?"  
  
The paranormal surveillance equipment lived in a mismatched assortment of bags and boxes in the basement, because, as they'd found out, the magically-charged environment of the keg room did funny things to it. It had been one thing when the EMF meter had developed a personality, but it had been another thing altogether when it had developed an attitude.  
  
"Yeah, man." Mac hung the rosary around his neck and followed Dennis down into the basement. He stepped over Dee's latest project - an ever-filling keg, fucking tragic - and picked up a crate containing several thousand dollars of equipment wrapped in about eight dollars of thrift store t-shirts. Most of the so-called protective cases had bitten the dust long ago. Back when they'd first started, Dennis had wanted them to have all the best kit, top of the range digital shit with more settings than he even knew what to do with. They'd bought what they could afford at first, which wasn't fancy, but it had worked just fine. They'd had grand plans to replace it all when the money started rolling in, but suddenly twelve years had gone by and Charlie was still fixing up that same old gear with duct tape and string.  
  
It was dark, but Dennis could make out the slope of Mac's shoulders, the muscles shifting under his shirt. Mac was a problem. He wasn't the brute Dennis had been hoping for. He was just enough of an asshole to be worth the time, but his basic nature was mostly made up of muscles and blind optimism. And he smiled too much.  
  
Dennis looked away, and picked up the other box. Between them, they carried the gear back up into the bar and piled it up on the table by the door. Dennis sat down at the bar and looked at his watch. They still had a couple of hours to kill before heading out for the night. He opened a beer, picked up one of the files, and began to read.

 

*

 

At last, the evening began to draw in, the last of the sun cutting through the dusty windows and falling to the floor in shafts of golden light. They all gathered at the bar, and Dennis lined up five shots of whiskey. "Alright," he said, picking one up. "Let's make this a good one, guys, I've had it up to _here_ with you assholes embarrassing me. Cheers."  
  
They all drank, and, as one, smashed the shot glasses on the floor.  
  
"Augh," said Dee. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "What is this shit, motor oil? What happened to using the good liquor for the toast, huh?"  
  
"Cutbacks," said Frank, his eyes glittering in the half-light. "These are hard times, children. Get out there and bring home the bacon."  
  
As Frank swept up the broken glass, the others began loading their equipment into the car. The Land Rover technically belonged to Dennis, but it bore the scars of its twelve years of service as the official company vehicle. There were claw marks and and several scorched patches on the interior, and a faint but persistent smell of gunpowder, and grains of salt in every crack, and bullet casings rolling around in the footwells, and a riot of scrapes and divots in the bodywork. Dennis loved her every bit as much as he had the day he'd bought her.  
  
It was still notionally Dennis' car, so he drove. Charlie and Dee took the back, picking up the thread of an argument they'd been having last week about necromancy, and Mac climbed into the passenger seat. Mac was the only one allowed to ride shotgun, because he was the only one who picked out good music.  
  
"I'm telling you," said Charlie, "I brought that bitch back."  
  
"Bullshit, you did."  
  
"No, I did! You were there, remember? It was last summer and we all got totally wasted and we went up to the cemetery and dug her up and took her back to--"  
  
"--The parking lot behind the Arby's! Oh, shit, I do remember that. Wow, you did not know what you were doing."  
  
"I did not."  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Yeah," said Charlie, reminiscently. "I mean, I was basically just making it up, you know? I was pretty surprised when she sat up."  
  
"You screamed like a little bitch."  
  
"I did. I did."  
  
"What happened with that?" said Dee. "I thought necromancy was going to be your new thing."  
  
"Aw, I don't know. Kind of lost interest after that one time, you know? Like, oh, you can bring people back from the dead, big deal. It's not like it's hard. I'm getting into cromniomancy instead. It's, uh, divination with onions. It's pretty sweet."  
  
"Oh my god," said Dennis. "Mac, will you turn the music up?"  
  
Mac leant over and cranked up the volume. The car CD player hadn't worked in months, it had broken when Charlie jammed a Pop Tart into it, but they still had the radio, tuned to the 80s station. Bowie was playing. _Let's Dance.  
  
_ "Oh, shit!" Dee yelled, from the backseat. Dee's taste in most things was abominable, but she liked Bowie. Dennis and Dee had fought like animals when they were young, but when they weren't fighting they'd get high together and listen to music, Bowie and Queen and Prince, talking to each other in their heads. Mac looked over at Dennis and grinned and turned it up louder, louder, until the speakers crackled, and Dennis hit the gas.

 

*

 

Night had fallen by the time they parked up outside, the sky darkening like a bruise and the heat of the day dulling. The house was tall and thin, set a little way back from the street, with a sign outside that read _HAUNTED HOUSE! Family tickets only $9.99!_ in big orange letters.  
  
"Jesus, this place is tacky as shit," muttered Dennis, as he killed the engine and swung himself out of his seat. "Full moon tonight, huh, Mac?"  
  
"Yeah." Mac glanced up at the sky. "I can feel it. Makes my teeth ache."  
  
"Well, suck it up. It's gonna be a long night." Dennis popped the trunk open and handed Mac a bag of surveillance equipment. Once the car was unloaded, Dennis slammed the trunk closed again and they made their way up the long driveway with their gear.  
  
"Hey, dude," said Mac, from behind Dennis. "Are those my jeans?"  
  
"Uh, nope. Don't think so, buddy. Where did he say he'd left the key, is it under the porch?"  
  
Charlie crouched down and peered into the space under the porch. "It's not down here, dude."  
  
"Huh. Under the mat, maybe?"  
  
Mac peeled up the doormat. "Nope."  
  
"Shit. I'll call him." Dennis reached for his cell phone, but Charlie had already hopped back up onto the porch.  
  
"Hey, Mac, is there a can of Cheez Whiz in that bag?"  
  
"Yeah, bro, I think we packed it." He dug around in the nearest bag for a minute, then handed it over to Charlie. Charlie took it, and, with a look of intense concentration on his face, sprayed a complicated, spiky symbol on the door. He gave it a push, and it swung open.  
  
"Whoa," said Mac. God, he was so easily impressed. Dennis hated him. And Charlie. What kind of witch thought Cheez Whiz was an appropriate spellcasting tool? It was thanks to this kind of nonsense that the Cheez Whiz was in the equipment bag and the chalk had gone in with the snacks.  
  
"Yeah," said Charlie. "I'm not sure it was actually, you know, locked. But the sigil of opening probably helped."  
  
"Ugh," said Mac, as he stepped into the house. "Jesus Christ, it smells like shit in here. You guys smell that?"  
  
"It's probably just Charlie," said Dennis.  
  
"No, man, it's not Charlie, but it's--seriously, can nobody else smell that?"  
  
"I can't smell anything," said Dee. "What do you want, princess, pot-pourri?"  
  
They carried the bags into the living room and began to unpack.  
  
"Shit, this place is sweet," Charlie said, looking around. "Man, _this_ is kind of place we should be using as an office."  
  
Dennis was jimmying the stuck button on the EMF meter and frowning at the dead LEDs on the readout. "Jesus, we need to upgrade our shit. No one's going to take us seriously with this garbage. _Surveillance only_ tonight, okay? I swear to god, if one of you fucks this up, I will skin you alive."  
  
"Yeah, yeah." Dee finished taping the thermometer to the video camera and slouched into one of the armchairs. "Save your breath, you make the same goddamn speech every time. Beer me, Mac."  
  
Mac passed her a bottle from the cooler and she levered the cap off with the bowie knife.  
  
"Oh, for--could you _not_ , Dee?" snapped Dennis, looking up from the EMF meter. "Could you not be a pathetic drunk bitch? Just for a few hours?"  
  
Dee gave him a long look. "Ha," she said. "You wore Mac's jeans on purpose tonight because yours are so tight you can't fit a flask in the back pocket. Who's the pathetic drunk bitch now?"  
  
Two can play at that game, you pathetic drunk bitch, thought Dennis, and he made her drop the beer.  
  
She shrieked. "Dennis! Oh, you fuckin' piece of shit, I'm going to _stab your face off--_ "  
  
She actually reached for the bowie knife. Dennis took a step back, out of range, and pulled Mac in front of him.  
  
"Guys, come on," said Mac. "I'm not getting stabbed in another one of your stupid fights."  
  
"Oh, please, give me _one time_ when you've been stabbed," said Dennis.  
  
"Uh, _last week_ ," Mac said.  
  
"Ooh," said Dee. She put the knife down.  
  
"Yeah," said Dennis, slowly. "No, I can't argue with that."  
  
He hadn't been _badly_ stabbed. But he'd bled all all over the interior of Dennis' car, and Charlie had had to patch him up with his own t-shirt. And he'd kept on trying to hold Dennis' hand.  
  
The argument forgotten, they went back to setting up the kit. Mac pulled out the EVP recorder (a tape deck that bore the marks of Charlie's handiwork), and Charlie began reinforcing the legs of the camera tripod with duct tape. With that done, they all settled down to wait. Mac grabbed a beer from the cooler but didn't drink it, pacing the room and picking at the label on the bottle.  
  
"Will you stop that?" Dennis snapped, at last. He was trying to concentrate on the file in front of him, but he'd just read the same sentence five times and he still couldn't fucking remember what it said.  
  
"Sorry, dude," said Mac. "It's the full moon, I can't sit still."  
  
"Oh, please. We know you're not gonna change, you can stop showboating."  
  
Cowed, Mac slid down into a chair. He nodded at the file. "What do you think we're looking at here?"  
  
"Honestly? I don't know. I mean, look." Dennis reached over and grabbed the other file out of Dee's hands, ignoring her squawk of indignation. "We got one dead body. All kinds of physical injuries. Definite signs of a struggle. Body's such a mess you can't even see if there are any tooth or claw marks."  
  
Mac let out a low whistle. "Jesus. This was the dude who worked here, right?"  
  
"Yeah." Dennis tried not to look down at the photograph. When he looked at it for too long, he kept on seeing it when he closed his eyes. "He was the last one here. All the security cameras went offline for twenty-eight minutes, then when they came back online, he was dead."  
  
"Okay, so someone came in and whacked him once the cameras were off. Why do these bozos need us to tell them that?"  
  
"Because none of the alarms went offline, genius. No one opened the main door, no one triggered any of the sensors."  
  
"Huh. That's weird. And what about the chick who disappeared?"  
  
"If she got out of here, she didn't go home," said Dee. She had a new bottle in her hand and the other file balanced on her knees. "And no one called the police hotline. There are still missing person posters with her face on them, like, everywhere."  
  
"Huh," said Charlie, frowning. "They, uh, searched the house, right? There's no way she could still be in here."  
  
"Well," said Dennis. "That was months ago, so. Let's hope not."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Things went quiet after that. Dennis could hear the soft clicking of Mac's rosary beads.  
  
"Hey," said Dee, after a minute. "You guys hear that?"  
  
"Nope," said Mac, and Charlie shook his head.  
  
Dennis listened for a beat, but there was nothing. "Dee, you're imagining things. Pull it together."  
  
"I don't know." Dee didn't look convinced. "Maybe. Look, whatever."  
  
She drank some more of her beer, and a few more minutes passed. Charlie was shuffling his shitty home-made tarot deck, passing the cards backwards and forwards between his hands, and Mac began to drum his heels on the floor.  
  
" _Mac._ "  
  
"Sorry, Dennis."  
  
Another silence.  
  
"Okay, I definitely heard it that time," said Dee.  
  
"Yeah," said Charlie. He put his cards down and cocked his head to the side, listening. "That was something, for sure."  
  
"Come _on_ ," Dennis snapped. "Dee, I told you not to get drunk. Charlie, you've been basically deaf in one ear since you got high and tried to summon that demon in your apartment."  
  
"Uh, I think you'll find I succeeded," said Charlie. It was true. He'd eventually managed to banish it to the bathroom, and, last Dennis had heard, it was trying to negotiate a share of the moonshine profits.  
  
"Doesn't matter," said Dennis. "The point is, you're both wrong. Mac, did you hear anything that time?"  
  
"Uh," said Mac, slowly. "I don't know. Maybe."  
  
"Oh, for--you too, Mac? Jesus Christ. All of you shut up."  
  
There was another silence, and then - a creak.  
  
"Shit," said Mac. "Dennis, you heard that one, right?"  
  
"It's the house settling," said Dennis. "Goddamnit, guys."  
  
"It's gettin' cold," said Charlie. "I don't think it's the house, Dennis."  
  
"That's what happens at night, Charlie. I swear to god--shh!"  
  
There was another creak, louder and closer.  
  
"Dude," said Charlie. "Come on, you heard it that time."  
  
"Yeah," said Dennis. The hallway on one side of the living room and the kitchen on the other were both dark. "Yeah, alright, there's something in here. Let's go find it."  
  
Dee grabbed the shotgun and slung the bandolier over her shoulder like a pageant winner's sash and Charlie picked up his ratty satchel, and the set off. They moved slowly through the house, sticking close together, feeling around in the dark for light switches and stepping on each other's feet. The creaking noises didn't stop, but it was hard to tell where they were coming from. Dennis couldn't help imagining that something was circling them, moving closer all the time. They checked every room, throwing open doors and checking cupboards and closets, working their way up through each storey.  
  
"Hey, Mac," muttered Dennis, as they climbed the stairs to the attic. "If you're ever gonna change, now would be the time."  
  
Mac sputtered indignantly. "Dennis, that is _totally_ inappropriate, okay, I've done a full risk assessment and this situation is--"  
  
"Oh my god," Dee whispered, as she stepped inside. "No one cares, Mac. Make yourself useful or go back downstairs."  
  
The attic was a single long room, with an uneven ceiling that sloped up and away into the darkness. The walls were lined with unused furniture, all draped in dusty sheets. Charlie found the light switch and they began to search, lifting the edges of sheets and peering into the dark corners.  
  
"There's nothing here," said Dee, standing up. "We must've gotten spooked and started seeing things. We've looked everywhere, we should probably just--"  
  
Then the door slammed shut. Dennis tried the handle, but it wouldn't open.  
  
"Okay," he said, slowly. "Let's not panic, and let's not fucking escalate shit to seventeen like we normally do. I'm sure... whatever... is in here with us is just scared." He tried the door, but it didn't budge. "Let's just... wait it out."  
  
And then the lights went out.  
  
"Shit," said Dennis. "I don't suppose any of you assholes picked up the flashlight?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Uh uh."  
  
"Not me."  
  
"Wonderful. Just fantastic. Really, well done, everyone." It was dark, the room lit only by a splash of moonlight on the floor. Dennis stalked across the room, then kicked some debris out of the way. He sat down on the floor, his back to the wall, and the others did the same. He dug the flask out of his back pocket and drank.  
  
"Motherfucker, are you _drinking?_ " said Dee. "After you gave me shit for it? Give that here."  
  
"No, bitch! You should've brought your own if--ow! Jesus Christ, you and your pointy fucking elbows, Dee, you're a freak!"  
  
One of Dennis' own hands jumped up, grabbed a fistful of his own hair and yanked. While he was distracted, Dee grabbed the flask.  
  
"Ugh," she said. "Dennis, is this fucking crème de menthe? I hate you."  
  
Dennis folded his arms and sat back against the wall, scowling. "I hope you choke."  
  
"Hey," said Charlie, suddenly. "Hey, I just thought of something."  
  
Dennis groaned. "God help us, _what?_ "  
  
"Okay, so--we haven't been doing so good lately, right?"  
  
"Well, not... it's the _economy_ , Charlie. Business is down for everyone, okay? I wouldn't expect you to understand."  
  
"Right, right," said Charlie, in the voice that meant he wasn't listening to a word. Dennis heaved a put-upon sigh. "But Carmichael said he'd heard we were the best, right? So who told him that?"  
  
"A satisfied customer, obviously," said Dennis.  
  
"Okay, cool, but... who?"  
  
There was a brief silence.  
  
"He's right," said Dee, handing the flask back to Dennis. "Here, take your disgusting booze, I don't even want it. When was the last time we had, like, a _satisfied customer?_ "  
  
"Ridiculous," said Dennis, pocketing it again. "There was, uh, the broad with the haunted art gallery. Remember, the exorcism? That place was as clean as a whistle by the time we were through with it."  
  
"There was the fire damage, though," said Mac.  
  
"Ah," said Dennis. "Yes. I admit, I'd forgotten about the... incident. Okay, the wolf-things that ate that hobo."  
  
"They got away, though," said Charlie. "I think the PSPD guys are still looking for them."  
  
They all paused to spit on the floor. The PSPD was Philadelphia's Paranormal and Supernatural Police Department, and they were assholes.  
  
"Yeah, but we knew it was them," said Dennis. "Alright, what about the ghoul in the shopping mall?"  
  
"That wasn't a ghoul," said Dee. "Remember? Some dumb bitch lost her kid in there and he went feral."  
  
Dennis did remember. Charlie had been so disappointed. "The goblins in the casino, then."  
  
"No, true, that would've been a good one," said Charlie. "Except, uh, they didn't exactly... ask us to investigate."  
  
Dennis couldn't argue with that. The injustice still rankled. Only some very quick thinking on Frank's part had prevented charges being filed.  
  
There was a long silence. Then Charlie said, "Does anyone else feel like there's something... not right about this case?"  
  
"Oh, thank god," said Mac.  
  
"You're feeling it too, right?"  
  
" _Yes_."  
  
"Okay," said Charlie. "So, uh, I'm not saying there is, or anything. But if there _was_ something, you know, not right..."  
  
There was another silence, shorter and nastier than the last.  
  
"Oh, _shit_ ," said Dennis. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back until he felt the bricks behind him. "It was a fake case. It was a fucking trap, and we walked right into it. Goddamnit."  
  
"Carmichael," growled Dee. "That bastard screwed us."  
  
"Fuck!" Mac jumped up aimed a kick at the wall.  
  
"I'm gonna kill him," said Dee. "Oh my god, I'm gonna kill him. Jesus Christ."  
  
Dennis was seeing red. "That son of a bitch," he said, his own voice coming out strangled with rage.  
  
"We're gonna kill him!" yelled Mac.  
  
"Well, look, let's not be hasty," said Charlie, getting to his feet. "We gotta be sure."  
  
Dennis and Dee stared up at him.  
  
Charlie nodded. "Yeah. And _then_ we'll kill him."  
  
"There he is," said Dee, levering herself up and off the floor. She grabbed Dennis by the arm and yanked him upright too. "Okay, how do we do that? All our shit is downstairs."  
  
Charlie looked like he was thinking furiously. He turned around in a slow circle, running one hand through his hair. "Alright," he said, suddenly, moving into the light. "I got something."  
  
He dropped to his knees, then reached into his bag and pulled out a thin piece of cardboard - the back of a Lucky Charms box, the corners tattered like he'd been carrying it around for a while - and a Sharpie. He flipped the cardboard over, took the cap off the pen with his teeth and began to write, his eyebrows drawn together and his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth. He started with the alphabet, the letters awkward and uneven, then wrote _YES_ and _NO_ in the top corners. After a moment's pause, he drew in a hasty sun and moon.  
  
"Fuck the numbers, not important," he muttered. "How do you spell goodbye? Never mind, they'll know." He scribbled _HELO_ in the bottom left corner and _BY_ in the bottom right, then tossed the Sharpie away over his shoulder and turned to Dennis, wild-eyed. "Okay. Dennis, grab that bag and find my seeing stone."  
  
Too surprised to argue, Dennis picked up the bag and, cautiously, reached in. The stone had sunk to the bottom and he pulled it out, trying not to think about the powdery residue coating his fingers. "Charlie, what _is_ that?"  
  
Charlie slapped the stone down so that the hole through the middle it was over the _G_ on the card. "It's a ouija board, you asshole. We gotta find out if what's in here is dead or not. You know, work out what we're dealing with. C'mon, come down here. I need your hands."  
  
They gathered around Charlie, down on their knees in the dust and the debris of the attic, their heads bent close together.  
  
"No offence, Charlie," said Dee, "But this thing looks like shit. Are you sure it's going to work?"  
  
Charlie made a strangled noise of impatience. "Yes, it's going to work! Ghosts don't give a fuck what the board looks like, it's about the _intent_. Alright, give me your hands."  
  
They all placed one finger on the stone, and waited. Charlie let out a slow breath. "Okay. Are there spirits in this house?"  
  
For a moment, nobody dared to breathe. They were all waiting for something, some push or pull on the stone, but there was nothing.  
  
"Are you sure this thing is working?" whispered Mac.  
  
"Shut _up_. I'm gonna ask again, are there spirits in this house?"  
  
Nothing.  
  
"Don't be scared," murmured Charlie, his gaze fixed on the stone and all their hands on it. "We're not here to chase you out, we just wanna ask you some questions. One more time, okay. Are you there?"  
  
The stone didn't move, still sitting perfectly still over Charlie's lopsided G.  
  
"It could just be slow, right?" whispered Dee. Charlie nodded. They waited, but there was no movement, no rush of wind or sudden cold.  
  
"Yeah, alright. Loud and clear." Charlie sat back on his heels, and looked up. "There's nothing here. I don't know what's in this house, but it's not dead. Paranormal, maybe, but not dead."  
  
There was an almighty bang, and they all jumped.  
  
"Mac," said Dennis. "This isn't one of your fake séances, I swear to god--"  
  
"It wasn't me!" Mac raised his hands. "How the hell could I have--"  
  
There was another bang, and then another. Something was trying to break down the door.  
  
"Jesus," said Dee, reaching for the shotgun. "Yeah, okay, that's not a ghost. So much for surveillance only."  
  
"Hey, Charlie," said Dennis. "I don't wanna pressure you, buddy, but that door's not gonna hold. Whaddaya got?"  
  
"Think, think, _think_ ," muttered Charlie, running his hands through his hair again. "Okay, we got, uh... I can do a salt circle, okay, and I got some chalk around here somewhere for runes, and, uh, you all got your tattoos..."  
  
A couple of years ago, Charlie had given them all stick-and-poke warding tattoos. Dennis wasn't convinced that they made a damn bit of difference. Tragically, Mac was actually proud of his.  
  
Charlie fumbled a jar of salt out of the bag and wrenched the lid off. "Stay close," he said. "Shit, I knew I should've brought more salt." He walked in slow circle around them, pouring a thick, unbroken line of salt onto the dusty floorboards. With that done, he shoved the empty jar back into the bag and pulled out a broken stick of chalk instead. "Now, look, I don't know what's out there. Kind of sounds like it's something, you know, pretty meaty, so the circle probably isn't gonna slow it down any. My advice would be, uh, get ready to run."  
  
"Great," Dee muttered, as Charlie began to chalk a string of weird symbols on the floor around the outside of the circle. "Just great."  
  
"Ugh," said Mac. "Okay, for real? Are you seriously telling me that none of you guys can smell that?"  
  
The door slammed open, and something came barrelling in. It was too dark to see, but Dennis caught a glimpse of teeth. Dee fired the shotgun and there was a crack of plaster, but no shriek of pain. She'd missed.  
  
"Get back!" Mac yelled, yanking Charlie and Dennis out of the way and shoving his way past Dee.   
  
"What the fuck are you _doing?_ " hissed Dennis, reaching out to grab him by the arm, but it was too late. Mac was running towards the monster. They could only watch as Mac vanished into the dark at the far end of the room. There was an awful, sickening crunching noise, and a bloody-throated scream, and a heavy thud of something soft hitting the floor.  
  
"Mac!" yelled Dennis. He took one step, but Dee grabbed his arm and held him back, keeping him inside the circle. "Mac, talk to us, buddy, are you okay? Mac!"  
  
A low, guttural growl rippled through the sudden quiet. It was a noise that was somehow full of teeth. A heavy footfall on the floor, two, and something moved into the spill of light.  
  
Dennis' first thought was _wolf_ , but it was bigger, too big, stocky and muscular. He could smell it, an earthy, animal smell. But that wasn't right, it was bigger than what had come through the door, and the shape was all wrong, and--  
  
"Holy shit," breathed Dennis. "That's _Mac_."  
  
Dee had gone still, paralyzed, but Charlie took a slow step out of the circle, towards the wolf.  
  
"Hey," he cooed. "Hey, hey, hey."  
  
"Charlie," hissed Dennis. "What the _hell_ are you doing?"  
  
"It's still Mac," said Charlie, simply. He took another step forward, one hand outstretched. "Hey, buddy, it's okay. We're here."  
  
"It's going to take your fucking arm off," Dee whispered, sounding strained. Dennis could feel how badly she wanted to turn around and run for the door, but the wolf was standing in their way. Dennis realized, distantly, that he was holding his breath.  
  
The creature sniffed the air. Slowly, slowly, it moved closer to Charlie, and nudged his hand with its nose.  
  
"There you go," Charlie murmured. "There you go, it's only me."  
  
A noise came from the far end of the room, like something stirring. The wolf - _Mac_ \- froze, its ears pricking up and its hackles rising. It turned its back on Charlie and slunk towards the noise, the end of its thick tail twitching. Dee grabbed Charlie and yanked him back into the circle.  
  
Something moved forward, out of the dark. There was another wolf. It was skinnier than Mac, but it looked rangy and strong. They were circling around each other, both snarling.  
  
"Jesus," breathed Dee. "What the fuck were they thinking, locking something like this up in a house?"  
  
"Shoot it, Dee," said Dennis.  
  
"What? No way! I'm good, I'm not that good. I could hit Mac."  
  
The thin wolf lunged, taking a flying leap at Mac. The noise was awful, like nothing Dennis had ever heard before. They were both moving too fast, fur flying and teeth flashing. One of them howled, hurt and scared, and, oh fuck, Dennis hoped it wasn't Mac. One of the shrouded pieces of furniture went skidding across the floor and hit the wall with a bang, splintering. There was a yelp, high and thin, and there was no way to tell which wolf it had come from.  
  
But then one body flew through the air and hit the floor with a horribly final thud and a crunch, and just like that, it was over. As they watched, the body on the floor began to change, limbs shifting and bones cracking.  
  
"Oh, shit," said Charlie. "Is that--"  
  
"Carmichael's assistant," said Dennis. "Yeah."  
  
The other wolf was changing too, smoothly, teeth shrinking and hair melting away.  
  
"Son of a _bitch_ ," said Mac, and threw up. He staggered sideways, then fell over. He looked pale and bloody in the moonlight, smaller than he'd been as a wolf.  
  
"I'm gonna be honest," said Dennis, "This is not what I imagined."  
  
"Mm." Dee nodded. "More nudity than I was expecting. And more barf."  
  
"Mac, buddy, holy shit!" Charlie was already out of the circle. "Oh, wow, that's a lot of blood. You okay, man?"  
  
Mac made a weird noise, like he'd forgotten how to use his voice. He tried again. "Ugh," he said, and spat more blood onto the floor.  
  
"You sit tight," said Charlie, patting Mac on the shoulder. "Let's, uh, find your clothes. This is really more dick than I'm comfortable with seeing."  
  
Using a cigarette lighter as a torch, Charlie picked his way through the dark and grabbed the clothes Mac had abandoned earlier.  
  
"Thanks," croaked Mac. He sat up and let Charlie help him into his shirt, then stood up and leaned on Charlie as he stepped back into his underwear. The seam down one side of the t-shirt had ripped, but everything else seemed to have survived.  
  
"You're scratched up all to shit," said Dennis. Dark spots were already seeping through the shirt.  
  
"Yeah." Mac stumbled again, like he'd gotten used to having more legs. Dennis grabbed his arm to steady him. "Don't worry about it. You should see the other guy."  
  
" _Don't worry about it?!_ Mac, you need a fucking tetanus shot!"  
  
"Probably," said Mac. He was still slurring a little bit. He struggled into his jeans while Dennis and Charlie held him up. "Oh my god, I hate doing that."  
  
"Mac," said Dennis, quietly, and Mac looked up at him. "That was... that was _badass_."  
  
Mac's grin lit up his whole face. "It was pretty badass," he said. "Did it look cool? It felt cool."  
  
"Oh, the coolest," Dennis assured him.  
  
Dee walked over to Carmichael's assistant and nudged the naked, unconscious body with the toe of her boot. "Hey," she said. "Speaking of the other guy, what do you think? Should we tie her up?"  
  
"Nah," said Mac, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "She's a loup-garou, and I'll bet you twenty bucks her boss is too. That's why I could smell them in here and none of you guys could."  
  
"What's the difference?" said Dennis, blankly. "Between you and them, I mean."  
  
Mac looked horrified, like Dennis had said something awful. "Dude! Okay, look, I know you didn't mean it, but I'm gonna need you to take that back."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it's racist!"  
  
"It's--how is that racist?!"  
  
"Oh my god." Mac rubbed his eyes. "It just _is_ , okay, don't... you're embarrassing yourself, man. Anyway, look, loup-garou get, like, _super_ change-sick. She's gonna be puking for at least six hours after she wakes up and it's gonna be, like, a day before she can even walk again. But these assholes travel in pairs, right? Carmichael's around here somewhere. Let's go find him."  
  
Trying to make as little noise as possible (although Dennis thought it was probably too late for that), they made their way back through the splintered door, hanging crookedly from one hinge, and crept back down the stairs. They didn't have to look far. Carmichael was on the landing below, still wearing the same ill-fitting suit he'd had on earlier. He was balanced on a step ladder, evidently trying to listen through the ceiling.  
  
He stared at them for a long moment, then said, "Oh, shit," and he jumped down and turned to run.  
  
"Oh no you don't, you son of a bitch," growled Dee. She lunged, and caught him around the knees. He went down hard, cracking his chin on the floor.  
  
Dennis sauntered after her and planted his foot on Carmichael's back.  
  
"Nice work, Dee. I knew your freakishly long arms would come in useful. Charlie, you got the tape? Let's get this asshole downstairs."  
  
"On it." Charlie rummaged in his bag for a minute, tossing out a lock of blonde hair tied up with red string and the rock he used for crushing up herbs, and finally pulled out the roll of duct tape with a triumphant "Gotcha!"  
  
He taped Carmichael's hands together behind his back, narrowly avoiding getting kicked in the face, and they hauled him up and marched him down the stairs.  
  
"Living room," said Dennis. "We can tie him to a chair."  
  
"Where's Christine?" snarled Carmichael, as they manhandled him into the nearest chair and taped him to it. "What did you--you _animals_ to to her?"  
  
"She's upstairs," said Dennis. "Never you mind what we did to her. Dee, keep the gun on him. I don't want this son of a bitch changing and making a run for it."  
  
"Yeah." Dee swung the muzzle of the gun up and pointed it squarely at Carmichael's kneecap. "So, uh, what's the deal with you two? I gotta say, I'm picturing you two together and it is... not pretty."  
  
Carmichael looked disgusted. "She's my _mother_ , you degenerate."  
  
"Oh. Ugh, okay. Was not expecting that." Dee made a face. "Moving on."  
  
"The chick who disappeared," said Mac, around a mouthful of beef jerky. "How did you do it?"  
  
"Oh, Mac, for Christ's sake, will you stop _eating?_ " snapped Dennis. "This is serious."  
  
"Sorry, dude, changing burns a lot of calories," said Mac. He was still pretty bloody, which should've made him look like a hardass. Somehow, it just made him look like he'd walked out of a shitty B movie. The bare feet didn't help, either. "I gotta keep my strength up. Hey, Charlie, toss me a protein shake."  
  
"You got it, buddy."  
  
"Jesus," said Dennis. "Look, ignore him. But for real, how _did_ you do it?"  
  
"An accident." Carmichael sniffed. "Silly bitch went exploring. Saw something she shouldn't have."  
  
"And the guy who worked here, the one who died. What happened to him?"  
  
Carmichael smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Would you believe me if I said that was an accident too?"  
  
"No," said Dennis, remembering the photograph. "We would not. I'm guessing that was your handiwork, then?"  
  
"My mother's."  
  
"Charming," Dee muttered. "Okay, well, at least that answers that. Next question: why? Why any of it, I mean, but mostly why _us?_ "  
  
Carmichael stared. "You're kidding, right? You seriously don't know?"  
  
"Uh, no." Dennis looked around. "Anyone else?"  
  
The others all shook their heads.  
  
Carmichael's smile was back. "Have a guess. Go on."  
  
Dennis snapped his fingers. "Got it. You were worried about having investigators in the neighborhood because you knew we'd catch up with you eventually, right? I'm guessing you guys don't have your section 17 license for part-human creatures living in an urban area."  
  
" _What?_ No!"  
  
"You don't have your section 17?" said Mac. He pointed his half-empty protein shake bottle at Carmichael. "That's a dumbass move, man, at least get a fake. I got a guy who'll cook one up for two hundred bucks and a couple of raw steaks."  
  
Carmichael spluttered. "No, it's not about the fucking section 17! Jesus, we knew you were incompetent, but this is... what kind of outfit are you running here, Mr. Reynolds?"  
  
"Hey, man," said Charlie, mildly. "You're tied to a chair, we don't have to take shit from you. Are we close, though?"  
  
"Nowhere near."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Give us a clue, then, man, we don't fucking know," said Mac. He threw the empty protein shake bottle away over his shoulder.  
  
"Unbelievable," muttered Carmichael. "You worked the case! The wolves and the homeless guy! You screwed us, we've been on the run from the PSPD for the last five years! Are you seriously telling me you don't remember?"  
  
"...Ah. Crew meeting," said Dennis, thinking fast. "Gather 'round, everybody."  
  
The others all huddled around him, and they shuffled away from Carmichael and into the corner of the room.  
  
"Okay," said Dennis, in a low voice. "Now, look, we could turn him over to the PSPD--" they all spat on the floor. "--But there are a couple of things to consider here, okay. Let's not make any snap decisions. Now, if we do that, those bastards are going to get all the credit."  
  
"I don't like that," whispered Mac. "That does not seem right."  
  
"Stay with me here. Now, look, there's something else, okay? If we turn him in, we don't get paid."  
  
There was a short, shocked silence.  
  
"I definitely don't like that," Mac said.  
  
"Yeah," murmured Dee. "Let's not do that. You thinking what I'm thinking, Dennis?"  
  
"You know it." Dennis glanced back over his shoulder at Carmichael. "I'd say we should just shake him down for whatever he's got and let him go, but we have to cover our own asses here, we don't want the PSPD--" they all spat again. "--on our backs for turning him loose. Let's find out how much he's willing to pay for a head start. Who's in?"  
  
"Well, shit," said Charlie. "Yeah, let's do it."  
  
Mac nodded. "Me too. I wanna get paid."  
  
"Okay. Follow my lead, and just - Jesus, be cool, for once in your lives."  
  
They all turned back to Carmichael.  
  
"Okay," said Dennis, raising his voice again. "Now, look, we're all reasonable people here, right? We'd like to offer you a deal. We could call the PSPD right now. You want us to do that?"  
  
"No," growled Carmichael.  
  
"Of course you don't. None of us want that. So, look, what we'd like to propose instead is--"  
  
And then front door crashed open and several armed, uniformed officers of the Philadelphia Paranormal and Supernatural Police Department swarmed in.  
  
"Get down!" one of them shouted. Dennis felt someone grabbing his arm and yanking him out of the way.  
  
"Oh, no _fucking_ way," Dennis groaned. "Jesus Christ, why _now?_ " He watched, aghast, as the PSPD guys barged past them and into the living room, surrounding Carmichael and levelling weapons at him. One of them removed a walkie talkie from his belt.  
  
"One target located and neutralized, sir!"  
  
"Hey, assholes," said Dennis, wearily, and the one with the walkie talkie turned to look at him. He looked slightly surprised, as if he hadn't even noticed Dennis standing there. "The other one's in the attic."  
  
They watched as half of the officers dashed off upstairs. Dennis groaned, and pulled the flask out of his pocket. Fuck, he needed a drink. With a heavy heart, he watched the PSPD guys carefully cutting through the duct tape with the bowie knife Dee had left behind earlier.  
  
One of the gray-suited officers wandered over. "Hey." Judging by the look on his face, it was causing him physical pain to say it. "You, uh, have the Paranormal and Supernatural Police Department's gratitude for your service."  
  
"Uh huh," said Dee. She swiped the flask and drained it, then handed it back to Dennis. "Uh huh, cool. Look, it's been a long fuckin' night, I'm just gonna come right out with it. Does that gratitude come with any kind of, uh... reward?"  
  
The officer nodded earnestly. "Oh, yeah," he said. "Big reward. Cash."  
  
"Really? How big are we talking? Because, you know, there's a lot to take into account here..." Dee's eyes narrowed. "You're fucking with me, aren't you?"  
  
"Big time," said the officer. A few of his colleagues were walking Carmichael out to their van, his hands cuffed behind his back and the others were carrying Christine's limp body down the stairs and into the foyer. She was struggling weakly against the hands holding her and making a high keening noise. "Leave the real work to the professionals next time, yeah?"  
  
He winked and tipped his hat to them, then followed the others out into the street. Dee, Dennis, Charlie and Mac stood on the porch and watched them go.  
  
"Those goddamn vultures," said Dennis, weakly. He couldn't believe it. His dreams of a fat paycheck and a string of glamorous, exciting cases, all gone up in smoke.  
  
"So, uh," said Charlie. "I guess this means we're not getting paid, huh?"  
  
Dee sighed. "No, Charlie, we're not getting paid."  
  
They watched the last PSPD guy jump into the van, and it drove away into the night, blue lights flashing.  
  
Mac clapped Dennis on the shoulder, leaving a bloody handprint on his shirt. Dennis didn't have the heart to bitch at him about it. "So," he said. "Now what?"  
  
Dennis thought about it. "I don't know about you guys," he said, dully, after a minute, "But all I want to do right now is go back to the bar and get so wasted I wake up in New Mexico with absolutely no memory of this shitshow. Who's in?"


End file.
